April First Week Macro Weekly Report — Tariff Pressure on Global Manufacturing, BTC Bottom Confirmation, Fed Rate Cuts Likely to be Delayed?
This week's keywords: Tariff risks, delayed Fed path, tech sector under pressure, BTC bottom consensus strengthening
After the start of April, the most critical variable in the market is Trump's attitude towards tariffs, whether it is a "stick" or a "result." From the current rhythm, it leans more towards a "stick": although Trump previously announced that a new round of tariff policies would be implemented starting April 2, in reality, the first round of a 10% base tariff will not officially start until April 5, and the reciprocal tariffs will be delayed until April 9. This means that the world has nearly a week of buffer time to negotiate with Trump's team and find countermeasures.
From the currently disclosed list, China is the country facing the most tariffs: reciprocal tariffs as high as 34%, with a base tariff of 20%, totaling 54% in tariffs, ranking first among all countries. More notably, this round of tariff strikes is not only targeting China; countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, and India, which have benefited from the transfer of manufacturing in recent years, are also affected, facing tariffs of 46%, 49%, and 26%, respectively. The direct consequence is a significant drop in the Vietnamese stock market.
This "manufacturing relocation" was originally intended to avoid risks but has turned into a disaster under tariff policies. Not only are Chinese manufacturing companies affected, but export-oriented manufacturers in South Korea and Japan are also under immense pressure. Not to mention Taiwan, which is also facing a 32% tariff; although TSMC has partially relocated its production capacity to the U.S., Taiwan remains its core production area, inevitably impacting chip shipments. Major OEMs like Foxconn are also at the forefront, and the ultimate consequences will be reflected in the rising costs and prices of consumer electronics from companies like Apple and Samsung.
Macroeconomic Impact and Fed Monetary Policy Path
Such a large-scale tariff strike will have the most direct impact on raising input inflation in the short term. Manufacturing and semiconductor supply will be severely affected, leading not only to headaches on the supply side but also directly causing price increases, which will further raise the cost of domestic consumer goods in the U.S.
U.S. inflation has already been difficult to decrease due to the "three highs" of rent, insurance, and services at the beginning of the year. Now, with an additional layer of "rising costs of imported goods," although the market still believes the Fed will start cutting rates in June, my personal view is not so optimistic. Unless there is an economic recession, the expectation for rate cuts is likely to be further delayed.
This also explains why U.S. Treasury yields have started to decline recently, and gold has continued to strengthen (relatively). The market is re-pricing the possibility of "long-term high interest rates" while seeking risk hedging tools.
Additionally, Powell's speech has provided hawkish remarks on the economy and inflation, acknowledging the potential for economic downturn risks and firmly refusing to ease on rate cuts, cleverly shifting the focus of economic and inflation issues to tariffs, while the probability of a U.S. economic recession is indeed gradually increasing.
However, Trump still holds a trump card, which is tax cuts, likely including reductions in capital gains tax on cryptocurrencies. If implemented, it will undoubtedly boost investor sentiment.
U.S. Stock Market and Tech Stock Reactions
From the performance of U.S. stocks, although the S&P and Nasdaq have started to decline, with a continuous drop exceeding 5%, the VIX index has once again surpassed 45, indicating a state of panic in the U.S. stock market. Companies heavily reliant on overseas OEMs and chips, such as Apple and Nvidia, are beginning to feel the pressure of rising costs.
Pure software and AI service companies like Microsoft and Google, which are less affected by supply chain issues, may see a milder decline. However, due to the ongoing influence of the AI trend, these software companies will still be dragged down by Nvidia and will not be very friendly.
Moreover, U.S. domestic manufacturers, especially those intending to repatriate, such as renewable energy and military companies like Lockheed (LMT), Northrop (NOC), and First Solar (FSLR), have not benefited from the "manufacturing repatriation" logic, leading to a rotation of funds. Even Tesla, which is domestically manufactured, may be affected by supply issues or declining purchasing power, resulting in a drop. The overall decline in U.S. stocks is not only due to tariff suppression but also due to expectations of an economic recession.
Overall, the expectations regarding tariffs and recession will have a greater impact on U.S. stocks, especially for the current hot topic of AI, where rising costs will emerge from the upstream.
Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Industry
Although there is currently a lack of independent narratives, Bitcoin has shown a completely independent trend. From the market performance in the past week, despite market sentiment being impacted by tariff policies and overall risk appetite declining, BTC prices have not significantly dropped, even maintaining fluctuations above $80,000, without effectively breaking below the previous low of $77,000. This indicates that there is still strong consensus and support in the current price range.
It has been pointed out multiple times that as long as there are no clear signals of economic recession, the core support for BTC will come from two directions:
- Continuously buying ETFs.
- Public companies using BTC as a strategic reserve asset.
These two parts combined hold nearly 2 million BTC, roughly corresponding to a value range above $70,000. This means that even if the market experiences fluctuations, this price range remains a strong bottom logic area.
Therefore, if BTC tests the previous low of $77,000 again in the short term or even briefly breaks below it, from a capital management and risk-reward perspective, gradually allocating some spot for short-term trading is a cost-effective strategy.
From a longer-term perspective, BTC's performance may still be constrained by U.S. macroeconomic data and Fed policies, especially around the release of key data (such as CPI, employment data, FOMC meeting minutes), where attention should be paid to the possibility of increased volatility and dynamically adjusting position structures.
On-chain Data
Although there has been no substantial change in BTC's price over the past week, the amount of BTC held on exchanges has been continuously decreasing. This data indicates that many investors still believe BTC has a good future, but perhaps not in the short term.
In fact, at this time, simple data may better represent investor sentiment. If the market experiences panic, a large number of investors will inevitably choose to stop-loss or take profits and exit. Even if they do not plan to exit temporarily, they will transfer BTC to exchanges, waiting for a rebound opportunity to exit. However, the current data shows no signs of a large accumulation of BTC on exchanges, indicating that even with price declines, it is difficult for investors to give up their holdings.
Additionally, there are two sets of data that I have been personally monitoring. One set is the total market capitalization of stablecoins, especially the two mainstream stablecoins, USDT and USDC. As of now, the market capitalizations of both stablecoins are rising, particularly USDC, which is now being used more by investors in the U.S. and Europe. The rise in USDC's market capitalization indicates that more funds are entering the cryptocurrency space. Although it may not yet have formed purchasing power, it represents investors' willingness to invest.
The other set is the URPD data. Through the distribution of BTC on-chain, it is clear that there is currently no sign of panic among investors. The main turnover remains with short-term investors, while long-term investors and high-net-worth investors have not shown signs of large-scale exits. On the contrary, high-net-worth investors are continuously increasing their holdings of $BTC.
Recent Investment Portfolio
Due to the impact of tariffs, the risk market is very concerned about recession, so some idle funds are preparing to buy 20-year or 30-year U.S. Treasuries. As mentioned earlier, this can lock in an annualized profit of nearly 4.5% and allow for arbitrage in the secondary market when funds are needed, as the U.S. will inevitably enter an economic easing policy.
However, execution will only begin after the tariff policy is implemented on April 9. If the tariffs do not proceed as badly as expected, the risk market may have a rebound opportunity. Therefore, at this stage, a small amount of BTC spot can be allocated, and some options can also be configured for hedging.
This post is sponsored by @ApeXProtocolCN | Dex With ApeX
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
